Rocketman
by CottageCheese6535
Summary: All at once, in a flash of terrible green light, it's over. Or, Danny really should have worn his suit when he went into the portal.


**A/N - So this is a little thing that I've wanted to write for a while. I like those Full Ghost Danny fics, so I decided to write my own, but it's been pretty low priority for me since I have like three other things I'm supposed to be working on. I might make it longer if I ever finish something, but for now, I hope you like this. **

**Disclaimer - I don't own Danny Phantom or the song Rocketman. Those belong to Butch Hartman and Elton John respectively.**

All at once, in a flash of terrible green light, it's over.

Danny can't process it at first. The pain of his death has stolen away any meaningful thought, anything he thinks or wonders or remembers is lost to him before he can find it. It courses through him, in and out like waves on a violent shore, charring his skin, burning his hair, forcing his jaw open in an endless scream of agony. Memories leak from his mind like water drips from a faucet, and soon the pain is all he knows.

He sees nothing but the swirling green mist, hears nothing but the crackle of lightning and his own screams. The mist seeps into him, burning him with it's every touch. The light grows stronger and brighter, and the pain strengthens in turn, forcing his eyes open cartoonishly wide and his body to stand ramrod straight, feet anchored to the floor.

It hurts. It really really hurts. And yet he feels…

Cold.

Then the power cuts. The lightning is gone, and so is the mist. He stands there for a moment, blinking slowly at the sudden absence of light and staring down at the green sparks still dancing across his skin.

Then, like a puppet with its strings cut, he crumples to the floor.

He thinks he hears someone scream, but he can't be sure. He can't really hear anything anymore. It might even have been him.

The refreshing coolness of the tiled floor soothes his charred skin, and he wheezes out a final, contented sigh. His eyes flutter closed, the wall of the tunnel fading away into blackness…

Something grabs his shoulders and his eyes fly open. He blinks rapidly. The wall is...moving. Someone is dragging him across the floor. He thinks that this should hurt, but instead of pain he only feels the reassuring chill of the tiles.

The thing that dragged him out of the tunnel turns him onto his back and two faces swim above him in, partially illuminated by the dull red light of the flashing bulbs. They shake him violently, and they yell and scream and cry, or at least, that's what he thinks they're doing. He can't see very well anymore. He can't feel the floor anymore either. It's like the blackness lurking in the corners of the room has started to creep towards him and envelop him in its chilled embrace, and he can do nothing but wait as it slowly leeches from his body what little life he still clings to.

One of the faces draws back. Danny blinks slowly, and the greasy black film of his vision clears away briefly. There's a boy sitting next to him. His head is in his hands, and his shoulders are shaking. He shakes his head over and over again, muttering something at his knees.

A word comes to him then, bubbles to the forefront of his mind, and escapes through his lips. "...Tuck…" he rasps. The word is mangled and dying, but it is there. The boy looks up at him, eyes shining with tears. When he sees Danny watching him, he cries harder. The other figure, a girl, pulls him towards her and the boy buries his head in her shoulder. She watches Danny too. Her eyes are wide and her face is pale, and tears have left ugly black tracks down her cheeks from her makeup. "...Sam..." Danny tries, twitching his fingers in her direction. "...s'okay."

Her lip trembles.

The black creeps back across his vision and Danny's head lolls to the side. Just before everything goes dark, before his last breath leaves him, and before his tired heart can beat for the final time, his eyes catch on a chair in the corner with a white jumpsuit tossed carelessly over the back.

The second to last thing to go through his mind is, _I should have worn the suit._

The last thing is, _wouldn't it be ironic if-_

And then he is gone.

…

Well gone isn't really accurate, he reflects, as he stares down at his body. More like...crispy.

It's incredibly surreal to stare down at his body like this. It's less surreal to stare down at the girl and the boy, but it feels wrong to see them cry.

He frowns. Why does he think that?

He decides not to worry about it too much.

Well, now that he can think again, he decides to think about what exactly is going on. First, he takes in his surroundings. Context is important, after all. He's standing behind the turned backs of the girl and the boy in a fairly large room, with metal walls and ceiling and floor and furniture and, well, metal everything. Is that normal? There's a big hole in the wall closest to his body. He remembers going inside that...but it's just about the _only _thing he remembers, besides his death.

Oh. He's dead. That's...new. Or is it? He can't remember.

There are alarms going off all around the room, the clangy sort that plays in sci-fi movies when something goes really wrong. Such as a death, for instance. (Then he frowns and tries to remember a movie he's heard these alarms in. He can't think of a single one.) As he listens, he realizes with a start that he can hear again. He grins, elated, until he notices the muffled sobs underneath the blaring sirens.

The girl and the boy are still sitting on the floor, crying over his body. He gets the sense that he knows them, or at least that they knew him. But either way, they're upset. And he hates seeing them upset. They need help. He has to help them.

Danny (oh, he remembers his name. That's nice) takes a step forward, towards the girl. The boy is still crying into her shoulder, and Danny feels bad for causing such a fuss. These kids shouldn't ever have cause to cry like they are right now. He crouches down next to the girl and looks down with her at his body. He wasn't even exaggerating before. If anything, crispy was an understatement. Most of his skin has been blackened by whatever it was that killed him, and his clothes have all but melted into his flesh. His eyes stare sightlessly at the chair with the jumpsuit over the back, the thing Danny remembers looking at just before he died.

He recalls his last thought. _Wouldn't it be ironic if..._what?

Danny shakes his head slightly. He can worry about that later. Right now, these kids need his help. He leans forward a bit to get a better look at the girl's face. He grimaces. Pale and teary-eyed, just like before. She doesn't seem to notice him, which isn't a surprise, given the fact that he is one hundred percent some kind of ghost.

_(Wouldn't it be ironic if-)_

Danny raises a hand, intending to place it on the girl's shoulder. Some comfort is better than no comfort, even if she doesn't know it's there, after all. But when he sees his hand, he stops. His skin seems to have turned white. He squints. No, not white, but a very pale shade of blue. He looks at his other hand. Blue as well. And, to top it off, what looks like bright green lighting is carved into his hands and travels up his arms in odd, twisted patterns. Danny shudders. He doesn't like the color green very much.

He looks down at his clothes. Blackened and crispy. He doesn't look underneath.

Danny shakes his head again. He'll worry about it later. He needs to help them. He places a hand on the girl's shoulder, but just as he had predicted, she doesn't notice. He sighs, about to withdraw his hand when he remembers a word.

Danny looks into her eyes. "Sam," he whispers hoarsely. "Sam, it's me."

Her brows furrow. The boy...Tucker, lifts his head and looks around in confusion. His eyes pass over Danny completely.

"Sam," he repeats, louder this time. "Sam, Tucker, it's me."

They both look up at him, but Danny can tell they don't see him. They stare past him, eyes unfocused and confused.

But then Tucker smiles weakly. Sam puts her hand over his. And Danny knows that he can leave. He won't move on, not yet. There are still people to save. He doesn't know how he knows this, but something in him insists that he is needed. So he will wait.

But Sam and Tucker will be okay.

Danny squeezes Sam's shoulder and stands up. He doesn't watch her face, but he can tell that she's no longer crying. Tucker as well. He feels a brief stab of guilt for leaving them alone with only his body to keep them company, but there's really nothing he can do. So he steps over his own corpse and crosses to the hole in the wall.

A spark erupts deep inside. He looks into the darkness, and, for a moment, he sees infinity.

Lightning dances across his skin and he steps through the portal.


End file.
